Hello! This is Lynn and Christy from The Actors Diet (www.theactorsdiet.com). We are two Hollywood actresses (one of us is also a Nutritional Health Counselor) aiming for health and positive body image in what can be a very superficial business. Thank you to Sam for featuring us on her wonderful site!

Here is a recipe that is fast and vegan, with a lot of health benefits. The chickpeas are a wonderful source of complex carbohydrate and protein. Plum tomatoes have cancer fighting agents and parsley helps to detox the liver and satisfy the taste buds. And the fresh corn is a sweet vegetable that will help curb sugar cravings later in the day. Add to that the antioxidents, the good quality fats of the olive oil and pecans, and you have a plateful of nutrition.

Hopefully by the time you all read this, I’ll be halfway across the world enjoying these…

And these…

But since today’s a special day, I wanted to touch base with you all. One year ago exactly, on July 14th 2008, I graduated from Cardiff University, after spending the three best years of my life at the place. I absolutely loved graduation – walking across that stage was one of the proudest moments of my life. My parents had to pretty much force me to return that gown at the end of the day, because I wanted to keep in on forever!

Here are a few snaps of the day (back when I had some hair!)

If you’ve had one, did you enjoy your graduation day? What was your favourite part?

OMG I’m going to Thailand!! I’m leaving for the airport in a couple of hours, so need to make this speedy. Work today has been absolutely manic, but I managed to finish pretty much everything I needed to. And now I have two lovely weeks out of the office.

I can’t wait to fill you all in on my adventures when I get back. In terms of food and drink, I completely intend to indulge on this vacation, without going completely mad. I want to try all the Thai curries and noodles, but at the same time I don’t want to come home four stone heavier. It’s all about balance I think. I don’t need to eat twice as much as I do at home, and I don’t need to have dessert after every single meal.

It’s been so long since I’ve been on a two-week holiday that I’m not sure how well the healthy eating is going to go. So it’ll be interesting for me, and hopefully interesting for you guys when I get back and recap. I’ve made sure to pack my running shoes. There’s probably about a 90% chance I won’t use them (there’s no gym where we’re staying and it’s going to be so hot), but they’re there just in case.

Besides, if I don’t take them I won’t be able to do this:

Hehe, I love this picture! Hopefully there’ll be lots of walking and swimming on this holiday, which should help keep me in shape. It’s going to have to – I have a 5k race two days after I get back!

In other news…I realise my blog posts haven’t been brilliant lately, and I haven’t had as much time to devote to the site as I would have liked. But I’ve been thinking of ways to improve it, and can’t wait to get started once I get back. Here are a few of the things you can expect (besides a vacation-recap of course!):

Regular posting at regular times

More in the way of product reviews

Guest posts from some of your favourite bloggers

More delicious recipes

A post on my 5K, which takes place on the 26th of July

A more thorough snapshot of what I eat every day (I realise I’ve been really bad at this lately)

More exciting breakfasts and lunches – this one is a promise!

More ‘topic’ posts on issues relating to food, dieting, exercise and body confidence

My very first giveaway, which will hopefully feature some Thai goodies!

I’m really excited about all the ideas I have for the blog, and I really think I can make it more interesting, more detailed and more fun for you guys to all read. So please bear with me while I’m away – I value and appreciate each and every reader so so much, and I don’t want to lose you all!

I’ll be back on the 24th of July, but keep checking in while I’m away because there are a few posts scheduled to pop up here and there.

What would you like to see more of on this blog? What improvements do you think I need to make?

Thanks for all the lovely comments about the new hair, they all mean so much to me! I’m still getting used to it, but it’s slowly growing on me (no pun intended!)…I think. I just had a shower and it felt so weird having about half the amount of hair to wash as usual. Still, at least it’ll save me a bit of money on shampoo and conditioner!

Today has been a bit manic…I’ve been so busy at work trying to sort things out before I jet off. And then this evening I (finally) started the huge task of attempting to pack. I must be the world’s worst packer – I just put it off until the very last minute.

My room currently looks like a bomb’s hit it, but at least my suitcase is slowly getting full. Tell me girls, is six bikinis too many for a two-week holiday?!

Trust me, they’re hidden in there somewhere! Talking of bikinis, has everyone read Meghann’s awesome post on Bikini Confidence? I’m the first to admit that the thought of donning a bikini doesn’t fill me with joy, but I’m determined not to constantly worry about how I look this vacation. I want to have fun and be confident on the beach, not stressing about how big my ass looks. Who’s with me?!

And while I’m doing shout-outs, I want to say a huge thanks to Holly for all her great tips and recommendations for Thailand. I’m so excited now!

Tomorrow I’m in the office all day, and then I’m leaving for Heathrow Airport about 7pm. My flight’s at 10 and takes about 14 hours – I hope there’s some good movies on!

Before I go and do some more packing, I want to tell you all about the fab dinner I had tonight. It featured a medley of crayfish, prawns and mussels:

First I fried a bit of garlic and onion in some olive oil, before adding white wine, chilli paste and tomato puree to form a light sauce.

While that was simmering, I cooked up some wholewheat pasta. When the pasta was done, I added it to the sauce, and chucked in the seafood and some spinach. I mixed the whole thing together until everything was covered in a delicious tomato-chilli sauce.

It looks like there’s loads here, but it was for my mum, dad and sister too.

My portion, with some steamed broccoli on top:

This is seriously the best meal I’ve had in so long! The sauce was amazing, and the seafood really made the dish special as we hardly ever buy it. I’m usually not a massive pasta fan, but I’m really going through a big phase of it as the moment. I’m getting hungry again just writing this up!

Are you a big pasta eater? What’s your favourite pasta dish? I love lasagne and ravioli.

Well I still haven’t started packing or booked anywhere to stay, but I did manage to tick one thing off my holiday to-do list this evening – getting my hair done.

I went from this…

To this…

It’s so short! To be honest, I’m not sure if I like it. I asked for quite a bit off, but I didn’t think she’d snip quite so much! What do you all think? It’s definitely going to take some getting used to! I do prefer my hair short in the summer though, especially on vacation.

Because of the hair dressing appointment, I needed something quick for dinner, so I decided on a tried-and-tested favourite – tortilla pizza. I spread some tomato puree over a wholewheat tortilla, and topped it with asparagus, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, carrot and low-fat mozzarella. Then I put the whole thing in the oven for about ten minutes:

I put some peach salsa on top before I ate it. The sweet and savory combination was great!

All in all a quick and tasty dinner. I’ll definitely put more cheese on next time though, it seemed to shrink in the oven!

Breakfast today was another muesli creation, which featured some of the raspberries I picked up at the weekend. Lunch consisted of farm shop items too – lovely wholemeal bread with lime and corriander hummus, spinach and tomatos.

I haven’t put tomatoes in a sandwich for a while, and I have no idea why – they went perfectly with the spinach and the hummus.

What’s your favourite quick dinner? Do you tend to spend much time in the kitchen or do you prefer speedy meals?

Sorry I was missing yesterday – it was such a hectic day at work, and I’m so busy trying to sort everything out for my vacation. I can’t believe I’m jetting off to Bangkok in two days time!! But more about that later. In the meantime, I know what you’ve all been waiting for me to talk about – potato digging!

My aunt and cousin live in an amazing old farmhouse by the beach. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and the kind of place I’d love to live in (when I’m a bit richer!):

They’ve got a massive garden, complete with a greenhouse, berry bushes and potato patches. It’s weird, my aunt assures me they’ve been growing their own vegetables for years, but I’ve never realised. Or maybe I was just never interested before? This time, when she told me about all the home-grown produce (some of which we’d be having for dinner) I was ridiculously, giddily excited and insisted I be part of the process!

Enter potato digging:

This was a good workout, let me tell you! The potatoes are quite far under the soil, so I had to dig around for a while to find them.

Once we had enough potatoes, I passed them onto my aunt for cooking and made me way to their berry bushes. Now you may have noticed I’m slightly obsessed with berries, so I was in complete heaven. They had blackberries and tayberries (which apparently is a cross between a raspberry and a blackberry). I had great fun picking as many ripe ones as I could find…and sampling them as I went!

I had A LOT of these over the course of the weekend – they were great with my cereal on Sunday morning. And I made sure I picked some more just before we left to go home, so I have some sitting in my fridge at the moment. Any bets as to how long they’ll last?!

When my aunt saw how excited I was about all the fruit and veg, she suggested to go to a local ‘pick your own’ farm on Sunday morning. Guess what my reaction was?!

My sister, my cousin and I had great fun picking everything on offer.

There were broad beans…

Rhubarb…

And raspberries.

All together…

We took all this home with us. With both me and my sister at home at the moment, the raspberry stash has become severly depleted in just a day! We’ve still got all the rhubard and broad beans though, any ideas as to what to do with either?

I can’t believe I’ve missed out on all this for so many years. Over the weekend, we also sampled home-grown cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce from my aunt’s garden. I don’t know if it’s just because I knew it was out of their garden, but all the food tasted so much better than shop-bought stuff. As soon as I have my own garden I’m starting a vegetable patch! (Is it slightly sad that I’m 22 years old and I’m this obsessed with fruit and vegetables? Still, I know you guys will understand!)

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In other news…Like I said, I’m off to Thailand in a couple of days, and I still have a million and one things to do. Including having my hair done, shopping, packing, getting money and finding somewhere to stay – quite an important thing don’t you think?! I also want to spend some time with my sister, because she’s off to Africa the day I get back to Thailand. She’s there for 10 weeks, so I basically won’t see her all summer.

I’ll still be blogging over the next few days though, so don’t go anywhere!

Have you ever picked your own fruit or veg? If you have a garden, do you grow any of your own produce? Or do you just go to Farmers’ Markets a lot?